Offseason Outlook: Chicago White Sox

Picking up Rios and even Peavy looked questionable last year, but the Rios move will be looking worse and worse each year. I have no idea why Kenny Williams figured it would make sense to lock up his entire team, when they're old and not very good.

I think Kenny will resign Mark Kotsay and Jhonny Nunez will be the 7th guy in the bullpen. Good work, Tim.

SP looks good, pen could use an arm, and LF or RF and DH need to be filled. Alright well Thome wants to come back. I guess we re-sign him. He doesnt go with the new plans of fast and athletic, but he will probabaly find his way back here. Ok now we talked to Podsednik's agent so we have interest in bringing him back. I hope we do cause we need a leadoff hitter. Even thou Pods is a bad outfielder, hes not too bad to play LF. I dont want him in CF but LF is alright with me.

I expect/hope Rios to bounce back. Let him start the season out with us and see how he does. I wont lose hope on him until halfway through next season.
Quentin, unless some random injury happens, he will be healthy. A healthy Quentin=HomeRuns
Beckham will get better and i want to see how he does playing the whole season. I think he will hit like 25HRs bat .280 and a lot of RBI's. Thats my guess on Beckham based on this past season.

I think they can contend next year baring injury.

“Picking up Rios and even Peavy looked questionable last year, but the Rios move will be looking worse and worse each year. I have no idea why Kenny Williams figured it would make sense to lock up his entire team, when they're old and not very good.”

They're really not that old anymore. Konerko and Pierzinski are definitely old, other than that they are a pretty youthful team.

There is nothing questionable about the peavy acquisition. He looked lights out in his White sox starts. Rios.....he has put up back to back solid years in the past. Still somewhat young, and definitely athletic. We should at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

I'd like for them to move Alexei to RF, Quentin to full time DH. Move Beckham to short, try and sign Beltre(I know, he's a Boras client) for third. Re-sign Pods and Kotsay. Buy low on Eric Byrnes(he'll be extremely cheap, about to be released) and platoon him with Pods in LF. Rios of course goes to center. Sign Calero and Darren Oliver for the bullpen and we're good. I know these guys are older and Type A and Bs but there's not a hell of a lot out there on the FA front and our internal options don't exactly have me jumping for joy.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. It helps us dramatically on defense, doesn't kill us on offense and strengthens the 'pen. I'd also be up for signing a defense-first backup catcher and giving Flowers another half year in AAA.

Vicideo is in no way ready, but he's going to be earning that money regardless.

is still just 20 I should have said.

I'd like to see the Sox sign Omar Vizquel as a utility IF to mentor the Sox young infielders. They will probably resign Kotsay and Podsednik. I'd like to see them make a run at Abreu for OF/DH.

I think the Sox would be a lot better off if they moved Alexei off SS. If he played CF, and Beckham moved over to SS, they'd be getting solid average offense from two defensive minded positions without sacrificing the defense. They sign Figgins to play 3B and they all of a sudden have a lot of speed and athleticism from CF, SS, LF, and 3B. Sign a heavy hitting DH and that offense gains a lot more flexibility which is what Ozzie has wanted for years.

They'll re-sign Pods for LF and lead-off. Figgins will not move positions unless its for Yankees-like money. Damon would be the next option, but again, more expensive than Pods. I actually could see them bringing back Dye over Thome to play DH. I think they'll want to get a guy that can play the field at least somewhat so they can spell Quentin/Konerko/Pierzynski by getting hit ABs as the DH as well. Thome doesn't give you that option

Let's put the premature "Rios is a bust talk" to bed:
BABIP (with Sox): 0.228
xBABIP: 0.301
He was ridiculously unlucky last year and is very likely, at his age, to rebound well.

That said, the 2010 club will look like:

Getz 2B
Beckham 3B
Matsui or Thome DH
Konerko 1B
Quentin RF
Pierzynski C
Rios CF
Byrd LF
Ramirez SS

I think his payroll projects are about right. I see the sox with a $95M payroll. If we assume Jenks gets $6M, Danks $1.5M, Quentin $1M, Carrasco $1M, Pena $.5M then we get $10M commited to arb players. That would put the sox right around $92M before filling holes.

Having just $3M to spend when we need an OF/Leadoff hitter, possible DH, and probably another bullpen arm is not going to be enough. Even if the sox go the cheap route and sign Pods to Leadoff, Kotsay to DH, and say get someone like Wuertz for the pen the budget wont allow for it. So something will have to give.

Polanco and Cuban free agent Yasser Gomez would be cheap.

Cuba also has two pitching talents available to the highest bidder (but should be affordable), one (Yadel Marti) who's ready to pitch in the majors and widely known LHP Aroldis Chapman (needs a bit more control of his stuff, which also includes thowing as high as 102 mph) are also available as free agents. They are also flanked by countryman free agent Yasser Gomez (who's been assumed as ready to compete in the bigs).

"Cuba also has two pitching talents available to the highest bidder (but should be affordable), one (Yadel Marti) who's ready to pitch in the majors and widely known LHP Aroldis Chapman (needs a bit more control of his stuff, which also includes thowing as high as 102 mph) are also available as free agents. They are also flanked by countryman free agent Yasser Gomez (who's been assumed as ready to compete in the bigs)."

When it comes to the Cuban guys, I think that the best idea is to wait and see, the track record with Cuban defectors is sketchy.

Excellent rotation, but I think they are depending on too many guys to turn it around offensively. Rios, Quentin, Ramirez... and Konerko is just getting older. It doesn't look like the Sox want to commit too much money either. I guess 75-80 wins sounds about right. Could compete for the AL Central (or better said the right to be swept out of the ALDS by an AL East team).

Trebek:

Nah, if the offense does not bounce back very early on next year, expect Kenny Williams to deal any of Pierzynski, Konerko, Jenks, Ramirez, or even Danks or Hudson to get an impact bat (AGonz, Fielder will be available at a price). The Sox have a 2 yr window to compete with Peavy and will get as creative as necessary to do so.

Yeah, I don't see the White Sox moving Hudson.

He's been really, really good at every level of the minors this year, moving through Low A, High A, AA and AAA all within the 2009 season, and it's likely that he'll contribute in 2010 on some level, likely as the fifth starter when Garcia falters or someone gets hurt.

And trading John Danks? Yeah, I see practically no way that the Sox do that now unless they're blown away. They're paying Peavy and Buehrle way too much, they need to keep the 3-5 spots in the rotation relatively cheap until Buehrle's deal runs out after 2011.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if the White Sox dealt Buehrle, they should've moved him instead of Javy Vazquez last winter, if it meant adding some talent and freeing up payroll space. He's just not a $14M/year pitcher unless you really, really value durability.

Yeah, Kenny has always done the majority of his work through trades, that's just always been his style.

He traded for Garcia, Vazquez, Peavy, Thome, Quentin, Swisher, Danks, Floyd, Podsednik, Contreras, Rios (basically) and Thornton.

His only major signings have been Jermaine Dye, Tadahito Iguchi, Alexei Ramirez, A.J. Pierzynski, Orlando Hernandez, Dustin Hermansen and Shingo Takatsu, essentially, in spite of being their GM for nearly ten years.

When it comes to major roster moves, Kenny has always been a trades guy.

Scribble:

Do your homework on Buehrle (per fangraphs):
2008 Value: $20.4M > $14M
2009 Value: $15.2M > $14M

"Do your homework on Buehrle (per fangraphs):
2008 Value: $20.4M > $14M
2009 Value: $15.2M > $14M"

As I said, if you really, really value durability, then yeah, he might be worth $14M, and that system does, because Buehrle eats a lot of innings, but he's not really that good, in the past four years he's posted xFIP's of 4.61, 4.10, 4.60 and 5.01, and those just aren't terribly good numbers, although yeah, few guys are more dependable than Buehrle, 200+ innings in every single season since 2009, which is pretty impressive.

"Scribble I like the idea of Damon and Winn buy its not likely haha...."

Yeah, they can probably get Winn at the right price, but it's looking awfully likely that Damon returns to New York.

I don't think that they'll be able to match the Red Sox if they add Figgins, because Pedroia, Drew, Youkilis, Martinez and Ellsbury is a pretty good core, without any likely offseason additions.

The Sox have some good guys in Quentin, Beckham, Ramirez, Konerko, Pierzynski and Rios, but it's tough to really know exactly what you're going to get from that crew, and it's unclear what kind of moves KW is looking to make this offseason.

As I said before, they're probably going to be the best team on paper going into 2009, but they need to add a major contributor or two to this offense.

BTW,
can we forever banish any reference to any FanGraph evaluation

I think it would be nice to see a real youth movement get Lillibridge out of town I don't care who we get for him package him in a deal with Jenks, as for Nix I guess hes a nice player because he goes out and players every where but he had 12 errors in pretty limited time but on the other hand he had i think 12-14 HR but lets get some speed up here i want to see Jared Mitchell also i think the sox owe it to themselves to stop living a lie and move Viciedo to 1B and not 3B dude wieghs like 240 and hes 5'11

futuresox.com

crash ur right because it says that Albert Pujols 2008 #'s were worth 40 mil.. Nobody is every going to get paid 40 mil. Pujols will probably get 30 when his day comes.....

The Sox should let Jenks go, free up money to go after Nick Johnson for some much-needed OBP. My best case scenario would be for Kenny to find a taker for Konerko and at least 1/2 his salary and then deal for someone like Hermida.

Lineup:

7 Podsednik
3 Johnson
5 Beckham
B Quentin
9 Hermida
8 Rios
2 Pierzynski
6 Ramirez
4 Getz/Nix

Pen

CL Thornton
RP Pena
RP Carrasco
RP Hudson

I expect Kenny to be real aggresive this winter because that rotation can win playoff games. Not many teams can say that.

If they can just have a league average offense, the rotation should be enough to compete. The bullpen will need an arm, ideally, but isn't bad.

It's funny though to hear people describe them as an old team. All you have to do is look at the players listed above to see they're pretty damn young for the most part.

But anyways, I've given up trying to predict KW.

I said this about the Indians last year, but it feels like there is just something missing on this team. It remains to be seen what the do at the outfield corners, but it wouldn't surprise me if they end up with under 80 wins. That Swisher trade is looking as terrible as I thought it would, he was miscast as a center fielder, but they sure could use his .360 OBP and 25 homeruns with above average corner outfield defense.

If he doesn't get a great offer for Jenks, I expect Williams to do very little. And in that weak division, getting Peavy was probably enough.

It won't happen, but if the Sox want to have a chance at anything other than a first round playoff appearance in 2010, they will need to replace their catcher, AJ was easily, the worst defensive catcher in the majors last year. In any game that matters, he is a significant negative to any team at this point in his career.

i think angels should get peavy after these being injured/dead.lets look.
1.John Lackey
2.Ervin Santanna
3.Nick Adenhart-Dead
those are three pitchers who are dead/injured at the beginning of the year we need to say it but,Peavy, your an Angel.

"We need to sign an outfielder who can hit (i.e. Cuban free agent Yasser Gomez or a power hitter perhaps if you can find one that also fields) and a 3rd baseman (Chone Figgins), get Beckham to play outfield or second base (or Alexei in center, or the Cuban .330 hitter)."

Dude, huh? Beckham in the outfield? You must not know much about baseball. Beckham is an infielder. He's been groomed as an infielder. You think we can just throw him in the outfield and that will be that? Come on man. Extremely unrealistic.

" A second baseman who can field and hit (Yunel Escobar) in exchange for Getz and Jenks. Or better yet just sign free agent Placido Polanco (because when we won in '05 we had a second baseman who effectively hit in the two hole to help Podsednik play over his head)."

Getz is poised to be a great ballplayer. You think Kenny should disrupt the chemistry of this team? We're heading in the right direction and your coming up with make believe-fantasy trades. Yunel Escobar? Be realistic.

Trade Konerko? Why? What will we do at first base then? Your entire statment is saying we completely tear up this team. Konerko is not only an important figure in the clubhouse, but he's in a contract year, which usually means he'll be playing his ass off. I understand you wish the sox would do these things, but be realistic.